Yeah, she’s not looking (or sounding, judging from her slurred speech) too good. That may be why she decided not to kill him; that she senses it may be curtains for her (again) and if so she doesn’t want a second death weighing on her wherever she goes next.

There is no such thing as non-lethal force. Only varying degrees of injurious force.
Any act of power carries with an attendant act of injury. Gnomes ought to know. There is no created order without disorder.

She’s not one of the tubed players, if that’s what you’re asking. We still have to figure out how exactly the game and its players interacts with the magicked copy of the real Arkerra and its inhabitants, but she IS Chrissie’s character somehow. We know that when players log off, their characters go on doing stuff autonomously (gonna have to look up where exactly this is stated). So it makes one wonder how exactly a player “creates” what is actually a PRE-EXISTING character and how (much) they control them.

Yes, but I was specifically thinking of the non-tubed players in Sepia World actually talking about their characters doing stuff while they’re logged off as if it was a design game feature. I mean they literally had a discussion about that specific topic.

IIRC, they also talked about the tubed players as a hardcore bunch who NEVER broke character in that same conversation.

Really, Bandit? You slaughtered your old boss in a rage and he wasn’t even in control of his actions, just a vector for contagious magical mental illness. You know for a fact this kid can manipulate with an absurd degree of effectiveness and actually putting him on trial would be difficult to believe to most and an embarrassment to cover up for the people who DO know what he’s capable of and want to maintain some level of political credibility in the world. Who would even try him? The very people he’s got under his thumb? The ones who let him run roughshod for no good reason? Don’t Anakin out on us, that didn’t go to plan for him to say the least.

I think she wants to use his capture for morale, since she does say they’ll parade him around. Parading around a child-king’s unconscious body is possibly better than parading around a child-king’s dead body, and it’s easier to execute him than resurrect him if the more politically-minded people decide it’s preferable.

Yeah but that’s not what the guy above is saying. They specifically were afraid of a) manipulation, b) pointlessness of a trial c) no reasonable judge/jury. If he’s brought, unconscious, to people who have more knowledge of the political climate (syrnj, penk, whatever), those points of contention are a) irrelevant/b and c) left to someone with in depth world knowledge to decide. Trying to argue Bandit’s making a mistake as a comic viewer is an emotional commentary at best, and the above comment wasn’t even that.

She killed Byron because of what she felt would have happened to many other people if she didn’t. Taro’s not a beserker, and she lives in a world where there is a unifying dread of berserkers. Upshot: very different situations.

it makes quite sense, berserkers capacity has been shown already few times (first time byron went berserk he killed two of his closest friends, 2nd time he went berserk he slaughtered peacekeepers team, 3rd time he killed army, and 4th time it was town) bandit did last resort that was available … kill it because it cannot be disabled nor controlled (cases how byron recovered were: it wore of after long while, 2: he killed himself, 3: syrjin has medicine that subsides state, 4th: medicine is not available so bandit kills him)

war crimes trails are held by the winners not the looser’s.. the Germans didn’t run the trials at Nuremburg the allies did. Americans British French and Russians. no Germans other then defendants. Along with all of the people who let this mini Hitler/Napoleon run amok. They get their own trial for allowing him to do all the crazy crap he did. Along w/ all the crap they did before he got into power. so yes a trail so you have nice neat line of pikes w/ heads on them that all legal.

World’s Rebellion trials so far are by combat so technically that was his trial and he just needs sentence carried. It would just be the little jerk getting his face kicked in a second time but with the added opportunity to manipulate the crowd into feeling outrage at a child being thrown into a pit of death and probably not up against somebody his own size. His dying breath used to discredit the idea the “savage” races would stand down and honor a diplomatic solution after such a brutal display and making a last ditch attempt to get history to remember him differently. And I think the little butthole could pull it off. Dying in combat, in his stupid tank that everyone watched fire on his own forces? Wraps things up a little cleaner, both sides have a chance to see who was driving while it’s fresh rather than waiting for judges who might only have secondhand knowledge of the battle. Gastonia can’t spin it, anyone Taro might be able to subtly threaten with secrets won’t be working for him because he can’t hurt them anymore, his legacy is that of a mad child, and there isn’t an opportunity to work any propaganda concerning Taro’s age or yet another round of delays as anyone works up the nerve to actually perform an execution.

Not that I’d shed half a tear if she introduced Taro’s insides to the outside, but the situations are not, in any way, comparable, and the differences quite intensely make killing Byron (even accepting that it was her, not Brother Tom, who actually killed Byron) more defensible than killing Taro.

Even aside from the point Phil made above concerning her attempting to subdue him non-lethally, she killed a mindless embodiment of rage and violence, in battle, as he was spreading the berserk to others.

That is a totally different thing than extrajudicially executing a subdued child.

It’s the difference of putting down a rabid dog, and a poorly socialized one. It’s arguably the right choice to put down the latter. It’s inarguably the right choice to put down the former.

It is much easier to make soldier stand down for a live leader held as a hostage then for them to stand down for a dead body.. she being practical.. they can always execute the little monster AFTER the war crimes trial.

I agree. At first I was all “KILL IT!” and then I realized I’d really like to see someone else get him. Bandit’s decision here seems fitting based on her past, so I think it shouldn’t be her to do it. Wise choice.

See, most of the time in fiction this sort of action would be seen as a show of strength. Strength of character, strength of convictions, etc.

But I can’t help but feel, in this instance, that Mercy actually is a sign of weakness. Because in this case, we have Bandit, who’s killed before (not a ‘kill or murder’ thing), against Taro, who’s killed hundreds by his own hand (not an ‘innocence’ thing), and she doesn’t kill him. The only reason I can see that she doesn’t, is that he’s a child. Which means it’s merely an age thing. And that’s NOT a good reason to let him live.

The only other reason I could see to leave him alive right now is to torture/humiliate him to death later- which is definitely not a ‘strength of character’ thing.

Mercy is not a sign of weakness here. It is just Bandit seeking justice. Killing him would not be justice. It would be vengeance. It would provide a rallying cry against the Gnomes, the World’s Rebellion, the Adventurers, by those who would seek to use or abuse the power of Iwatania. By keeping Taro alive, so he can be held accountable for his crimes in a court of law, it creates a far greater opportunity to build peace. To ensure that no one can use the little shit as a rallying cry.

Plus, if she killed him? She’d be no better than that little bastard. And honestly? I think that’s probably why she stopped. To be the bigger woman.

Eeeexcept that Taro kills people because they don’t fold his socks right. Bandit would be killing Taro to stop more killing, including the design, creation and deployment of Weapons of Mass Slaughter.

This is why I don’t like Batman’s whole “No Killing the Joker” thing. It’s all well and good to uphold Justice and Law and Due Process, but there ARE some situations where said tenets of society are a hindrance to the survival of the society itself. Such instances are rare, and it is very dangerous to tr and determine them, but they do exist.

Consider the biological body as a metaphor for a functioning society, in this case. The Justice system (courts, arbiters, juries, jailers and executioners) is the equivalent of the Immune System- rooting out and isolating or destroying bad cells. Now, normal day-to-day reactions- a sneeze, extra mucous, etc, is normal by-the-book stuff. Then you get the Fever- an immune reaction meant to do a total wipe of infection from the whole body. Your body only breaks these out in severely threatening cases- we could call the Fever a War Trial, perhaps.

Normally, a Fever is something to let run its course (it’s a major Trial for a major figure- say, the deposed head of state after a successful invasion). However, in some cases, the Fever is dangerous to the body itself- namely, when it runs long, or runs too hot. So too, can a Trial be dangerous. I feel that any trial that Taro is the subject of has just that sort of chance to run Hot and Long, and possibly kill the potential nation that might grow out of his defeat, before he’s taken care of.

Well, maybe a trial would be for the best after all, even if he’s judged by Gastonian Law. After all, in a pseudo-medieval setting like that, what’s the usual punishment for crimes such as mass murder of the Crown’s soldiers, the Crown’s subjects…Oh, and let’s not forget Patricide & Matricide of the previous rulers? Probably the only choice Taro might have when it comes to execution time would be for the *method*

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